Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Why Some Guys Spend Way Less Time With Their Wives Than You Do....But Those Wives Aren't Mad Like Yours Is

Transcript

Why Some Guys Spend Way Less Time With Their Wives Than You Do....But Those Wives Aren't Mad Like Yours Is · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the Doctor Psych mom ship.
• 0:08
  Today we're going to be talking about this logical conundrum
• 0:13
  that some guys just cannot understand about how they
• 0:17
  actually get a lot of shit for anything that they do that's
• 0:21
  outside the house. But they have like buddies who
• 0:24
  are constantly out of the house, whether it's to socialize or for
• 0:28
  work or really anything, or to work out or hobbies or what have
• 0:33
  you other obligations. And those other guys don't catch
• 0:36
  a lot of shit. And so the common way that guys
• 0:40
  conclude, you know, they're thinking about this is that
• 0:44
  their wife is a bitch and this other wife is really laid back
• 0:47
  and cool, but that really, you know, whenever you conclude with
• 0:51
  that you know, somebody's a bitch, then it's probably not
• 0:54
  right? You know, just like all the
• 0:56
  stuff about, oh, that guy's A narcissist.
• 0:59
  You know that women say like whenever your conclusion is that
• 1:02
  one person is bad or worse, one gender is bad, then we really
• 1:06
  have to interrogate that assumption so that you, you
• 1:09
  know, don't keep perpetuating these kind of caricatures of of
• 1:14
  human beings that really prevent you from understanding anything
• 1:17
  on what could be a more helpful and more nuanced level.
• 1:21
  Before we do that, please do subscribe.
• 1:24
  My most recent subscriber episode is kind of related to
• 1:27
  this one, actually. Why some guys think treat 'em
• 1:31
  mean keep 'em keen works. Or like that being mean to women
• 1:35
  or insulting to them or whatever is actually the only way to or
• 1:40
  or even the inspiring dread and being a man of mystery, that
• 1:44
  stuff. Why do some guys think that that
• 1:46
  works? Why does it work for some guys
• 1:49
  but not others? And we talked about that in the
• 1:51
  most recent subscriber episode, in addition to about 134 others
• 1:55
  and well worth the 899 to subscribe.
• 1:59
  And yeah, that's that. So anyway, what are we talking
• 2:03
  about today? We're talking about this idea of
• 2:06
  the guy going out doing his own thing and the woman saying
• 2:11
  basically you never spend time with me or why are you always so
• 2:15
  busy prioritizing everything that isn't us?
• 2:17
  Or why don't me and the kids get the level of attention that you
• 2:20
  give to your buddies or whatever, but then yet they are
• 2:24
  out with all these other guys or working with all these other
• 2:27
  guys if the issue is you work too much.
• 2:29
  Or working out with these other guys if the issue is you work
• 2:32
  out too much. And yet they see that some of
• 2:35
  these guys are actually having great relationships with with
• 2:37
  these other women, right. Who, as I alluded to before they
• 2:42
  conclude are just better, probably have sex fantasies
• 2:46
  about these other women that are just so laid back that not only
• 2:48
  do they let you go, do anything you want, but they let you
• 2:51
  really do anything you want, even in bed.
• 2:53
  Well, you know what? There's a really easy fix, and
• 2:59
  some guys don't even realize how easy it is, you know?
• 3:02
  And that's why I'm making this post.
• 3:04
  Not this post, this podcast episode.
• 3:07
  Point is, most of these guys, here's the mind blower.
• 3:11
  Most of these guys are actually much more involved emotionally,
• 3:18
  which is why the woman doesn't care where their physical body
• 3:21
  is as much. So these the ones where this
• 3:24
  goes well, and I always use this analogy because it's great.
• 3:28
  There's some guys that do that. Their marriages are OK when the
• 3:31
  guy is deployed, literally deployed.
• 3:34
  I used to work in Ava, as I mentioned, semi regularly.
• 3:39
  So there were some guys whose marriages lasted when they were
• 3:41
  gone and some guys whose marriages didn't.
• 3:43
  None of those guys were able at that stage, you know, them were
• 3:46
  able to like text or anything. So they had like phone calls and
• 3:49
  letters sometimes, right. So how did some?
• 3:52
  And of course, you know, the woman brings something to the
• 3:55
  table too, and the circumstances and whatever.
• 3:58
  But how were some guys able to stay connected with their wives
• 4:02
  better than other guys in the situation of deployment?
• 4:04
  Well, some women saved those letters.
• 4:06
  They had like, love letters from the guy.
• 4:09
  Every phone call, a guy was saying, like, how much he missed
• 4:12
  her and how wonderful and beautiful and amazing she is and
• 4:16
  he can't wait to get back to her.
• 4:18
  And some guys were just like, how is everything, you know?
• 4:22
  Oh, yeah. Oh, OK all right.
• 4:25
  Love you. Bye.
• 4:27
  Right. Or the letters were not really
• 4:29
  in much to write home about. Haha.
• 4:31
  But no, really, there's a big difference between the emotional
• 4:35
  connection across men, obviously, and women.
• 4:39
  To every human, there's a bell curve, a normal distribution for
• 4:42
  every every trait, right? But the guys who are more
• 4:46
  emotionally connected verbally tend to have women that don't
• 4:49
  care as much where they're at physically because So for
• 4:53
  example, so everybody's not going to, you know, be deployed.
• 4:56
  And if you are, you're not going to be listening to this podcast
• 4:59
  as your first thing to think about.
• 5:00
  You got bigger fish to fry. So forget those people.
• 5:04
  Now let's look at people who are in a, you know, regular job
• 5:08
  situation. So there's guys who are gone 8
• 5:10
  hours a day and they text their wife a couple times an hour and
• 5:17
  they say nice stuff, cute stuff. And I miss you.
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  I can't wait to come home to you.
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  And then if their boss says that they are going to have to stay
• 5:25
  late, they say, Oh my God, I can't believe it, I'm so mad I
• 5:29
  have to stay late. I miss you so much.
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  I can't. I can't believe I'm going to
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  miss dinner with you and the kids again.
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  And then there's other guys who barely text the woman except to
• 5:39
  say, what kind of cereal did you tell me to get later from the
• 5:42
  store? And then when they're meant to
• 5:43
  stay late, they'd either don't text at all and just show up
• 5:46
  late, or they say ETA now 715 boss wants to meet or something
• 5:52
  like that, right? And then she says something
• 5:55
  like, Oh my God, I can't believe that you're going to be gone
• 5:58
  another night this week. And what does he say?
• 6:01
  It's not my fault. Why are you always blaming me?
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  I can't. I can't decide when my boss
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  wants to meet. Don't you want to have a
• 6:09
  paycheck? Who pays this mortgage?
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  Do you think that? You know, money grows on trees?
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  He wants to me to five. That's when I have to meet.
• 6:17
  You know that. Well, think about it.
• 6:20
  Who's going to get laid, right? I mean, like, it's pretty
• 6:22
  obvious when I put it into these terms, but some guys think that
• 6:26
  if they said, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm going to be late
• 6:30
  again. First of all, they don't really
• 6:31
  give a shit. They don't think like that.
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  So they would have to train themselves to think like that.
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  Just like they want the woman to train herself to be more
• 6:38
  sexually open. They would have to train
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  themselves to be more romantically open and more
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  expressive, just like they want their woman to be in bed.
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  And I lead with that analogy just to head off the people who
• 6:49
  are like, yeah, but that's disingenuous, That's fake.
• 6:51
  That's not the real me. The real me isn't romantic, so
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  the real me doesn't, you know, want to say things like that.
• 6:57
  Well, the real her doesn't give head, you know.
• 6:59
  So why are we wondering, like, whether this is right or wrong?
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  The real you should be a cross between the real you and the you
• 7:06
  that your partner would love you to be if you're trying to be a
• 7:09
  good partner, right? So it's not disingenuous to try
• 7:14
  to do things that your partner would love, whether that's
• 7:16
  acting romantically or acting more open sexually or whatever.
• 7:20
  So anyway, so a lot of guys think that if they say the one
• 7:24
  with Oh my God, I can't believe it.
• 7:27
  My boss is such an asshole. Why does he want me to meet at
• 7:30
  5:00? I wish I was home with you guys
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  instead. That then somehow they would be
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  like, forced into a corner. That then the woman would say
• 7:38
  something like. And it sounds ridiculous when
• 7:40
  you say it out loud, but this is truly what guys think.
• 7:42
  They've said it to me that then she's going to say, I told you,
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  this isn't the right job. You must quit your job.
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  You must do it. You must do it today.
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  March into the office and say that you're leaving.
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  See, even you agree that your boss is an asshole, like I've
• 7:56
  always said. And now you must quit your job
• 7:58
  immediately, forthwith. You have no other leg to stand
• 8:01
  on. And in fact, you know what?
• 8:02
  I'm going to do it for you by magical powers.
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  I will go to your boss's office in in lieu of you and say that
• 8:08
  you have quit your job or some ridiculous thing like that, that
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  somehow they are going to then be in a situation where the
• 8:16
  woman believes that she is right, that this is not a good
• 8:20
  job. Guess what?
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  She thinks that. Anyway, it's just whether or not
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  you agree. If you agree that your boss is
• 8:28
  an asshole, the rest of your night is going to go well and
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  she's not going to care as much that you're not there because
• 8:33
  you and she agreed on something. She knows that you get paid.
• 8:36
  She knows your family needs money, right?
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  She knows you need a job. There's no women that are like,
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  oh, what I really want is for him to be totally unemployed.
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  That's hot. You know, I really.
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  Then he could devote more time to gaming and to eating.
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  You know, those would be better. No.
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  Like what? So she knows you have to have a
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  job, so you're not going to lose face by agreeing with her that
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  it sucks that you have to work longer.
• 9:00
  And then during the day, you can also be saying positive things
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  to her, like, I miss you, I love you.
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  She's not going to say, haha, you miss me.
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  Thus you must quit your job. You have proven that you miss me
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  like how I miss you. So therefore you should not be
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  at work at all. No, it's the opposite.
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  So when guys actually listen and say, you know, being coach, I'm
• 9:24
  so sad that I'm missing family dinner because of work, Which on
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  some level they are right. They don't want to be having
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  another meeting with their boss. Really.
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  At least they miss the kids. No matter the level of marital
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  conflict with the wife, they do miss the kids.
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  So they say it. They access that part of their
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  genuine feeling rather than the part that's defensive and garden
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  and has to be right all the time.
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  You know, which women hate that trait.
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  And so they say, I can't believe it, I have to be gone again for
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  dinner. This sucks.
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  You know what The woman says 9 times out of 10.
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  Oh man, that sucks. I'm sorry.
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  That sucks. It's OK.
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  Well, I'll, I'll the kids will see you at 7:30 when you get
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  home. You'll and and then like, if you
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  know it even continues because then if they're like, oh, but
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  what if I'm not even home yet. It's OK.
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  The kids know that daddy's working.
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  You know, we'll, I'll, I'll, I'll face you could FaceTime
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  them before you drive home. Literally.
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  Like women will come out and fix this problem.
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  They feel bad for you. Unless she's a total sociopath.
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  She. I mean, is she nice to the
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  children Then she's not a total sociopath.
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  So you know, then she wants to fix problem.
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  She wants to caretake. She wants you to be vulnerable.
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  I say this all the time, and this is like the big
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  transcendental moment that shifts a lot of marriages is
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  when the guy's finally vulnerable.
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  That's when marriages start to go on the upswing because she
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  sees he finally has feelings, you know?
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  And I've talked a lot, a lot, a lot about this.
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  Do women like emotional men? I have many podcasts about this.
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  A lot of just as a bracket point that you can explore in my other
• 10:58
  podcasts, when guys say women don't want emotional men, these
• 11:02
  are the preoccupied men and the emotions that they're expressing
• 11:04
  are I think you're cheating on me.
• 11:07
  I am dissatisfied with our sex life.
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  And I think that you used to blow your college boyfriend more
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  than you blow me. Yeah, nobody.
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  Those are not feelings. Those are like insecurities.
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  And if that is all that you express is insecurities and
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  jealous, controlling complaints, then yeah, I mean, then if
• 11:25
  that's how you do emotional, then she doesn't like emotional.
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  But that's not emotional. Emotional is a guy who's
• 11:30
  expressing a range of human emotions, emotional, all the
• 11:35
  emotions all. So you know, you want to lead
• 11:39
  with vulnerability. So you say I missed you all day.
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  I can't believe that I'm not going to get to see you later.
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  That sucks, right? So then let's take it to the
• 11:48
  hobbies and stuff. So you say, all right, fine, but
• 11:50
  your boss is making you stay, so all right, fine, so I could get
• 11:53
  behind that. But what about when I actually
• 11:55
  want to go do my hobby? Well, there's two ways to do it.
• 11:59
  I had a message from a guy that said that his whole dynamic with
• 12:03
  his wife changed because he listened to my advice and he
• 12:05
  asked her about going out with his friends instead of telling
• 12:08
  her is going out with his friends.
• 12:09
  And it went 100% different. She said oh, OK, because she was
• 12:13
  so happy to be asked to be part of the decision to be something
• 12:16
  that he thinks about. This is what the woman wants to
• 12:18
  be, something that you think about.
• 12:19
  So if you're going to train for your race, you say, So what I
• 12:24
  like to do, I would like to train for this race.
• 12:27
  But then on the other hand, I'm going to be missing all this
• 12:29
  time with you. So that upsets me, you know,
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  missing time with you and the kids.
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  I'm trying to think about if there's any way that I could do
• 12:36
  it, if I could do the training but also have enough time to
• 12:39
  spend with you and the kids because I miss you.
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  I'm gone for like, you know, 5 hours to do this bike ride once
• 12:46
  a week or something and and I'm going to miss all this time with
• 12:49
  you. So I don't know how to do it.
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  So some women will say, well, you know what?
• 12:53
  Like now I have three kids under, you know, three, Now is
• 12:55
  not the time, two kids under 2, whatever.
• 12:58
  And I really wish that you would defer your triathlon training
• 13:02
  until a later date, let's say, right.
• 13:05
  But some women will say, well, it's OK, you know.
• 13:08
  All right, so it's five hours. So, I mean, I guess what I'll do
• 13:11
  is, is maybe that's when I'll go to my mom.
• 13:13
  So I guess if you did it on Sundays when I go to my mom
• 13:17
  anyway, right? Like I could just go to my mom
• 13:19
  and and she likes to see the kids anyway.
• 13:21
  You know what? Even I could go to the gym.
• 13:22
  Maybe during that time it'll be OK.
• 13:25
  All right. It'll be OK.
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  Why? Cuz you asked.
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  Because it's collaborative. If you say so.
• 13:30
  My training starting, and I'm going every other week for, you
• 13:35
  know, five hours and then in between it'll be 2 1/2 hours and
• 13:40
  it'll be this time and this time that she's going to be like,
• 13:42
  fuck you. You don't value this family.
• 13:45
  Like, why do you just get to do anything you want all the time
• 13:48
  and whatever, whatever. But if you say that you're going
• 13:50
  to miss her, that she has input into it and that you in fact
• 13:55
  wish that there was a world, which hopefully you do, where
• 13:58
  you could clone yourself and do both things, but you can.
• 14:02
  So then you're asking her for her help and her input.
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  Women love to help. They love their input to be
• 14:07
  asked, as I've said here, John Gottman, the marital researcher,
• 14:12
  he shows that the most important thing for women is when the man
• 14:15
  accepts influence. The most important thing for men
• 14:17
  is a gentle approach from the woman when she's bringing
• 14:20
  something up. So in this case, you're
• 14:22
  accepting influence. You're saying you're going to
• 14:24
  miss her. And it's the same thing going
• 14:25
  out with your friends, too, because then some people say,
• 14:28
  okay, well, that's for my health.
• 14:30
  Nobody's doing triathlon training for their health.
• 14:32
  That's like saying you joined the, you know, the the Bolshoi
• 14:36
  ballet for your health. It's excessive, right?
• 14:38
  Like it's not for your health. It's a hobby, right?
• 14:40
  But whatever. So what about just going out
• 14:42
  with the boys? How come some of the guys that I
• 14:44
  go out with don't catch shit for going out and some of them do.
• 14:48
  If you look at those guys, phone, I'll tell you because I
• 14:50
  see their girlfriends and wives in session and the ones where
• 14:55
  they the woman doesn't care that much.
• 14:57
  The whole night on and off the guy's texting and when he comes
• 15:01
  home he's saying, oh man, I missed you so much tonight.
• 15:03
  You can't wait to hear the stories about this and that and
• 15:06
  the other. Or he was texting them to her in
• 15:08
  real time. Oh, this is funny.
• 15:11
  You know Jack is going up to this girl funny.
• 15:13
  You know, like I'll tell you later.
• 15:15
  I love you. I miss you.
• 15:18
  I hope you're having a good night, sweetheart.
• 15:20
  You know? And then these women are texting
• 15:22
  back. I love you.
• 15:23
  I miss you. The guy says I miss you.
• 15:25
  The guy says I can't wait to be home.
• 15:27
  I'm going to be leaving soon. This is when I'm leaving, right?
• 15:30
  So then this woman got something good by him going out with his
• 15:33
  friends. She got a bunch of texts, a
• 15:35
  bunch of nice texts where he says that he misses her and he
• 15:38
  loves her. And then she's even going to get
• 15:40
  stories later about the funny things that happened when he was
• 15:43
  out with his friends or stuff that they discussed or what have
• 15:46
  you, That then brings them closer because she feels
• 15:48
  involved in his life. Contrast this with the guy who
• 15:52
  goes out with his friends. He doesn't say when he's coming
• 15:54
  home or or he does and he just gets back in under the wire.
• 15:57
  Doesn't tell her anything that happened.
• 15:59
  Oh yeah, yeah, we had fun. We didn't talk about much and
• 16:01
  goes right to sleep or tries to get laid right after.
• 16:05
  They had no connection the whole night, and he's even drunk, so
• 16:08
  even more like repulsive to most women.
• 16:11
  And there's nothing good. He didn't text her.
• 16:14
  I miss you. He didn't text her.
• 16:15
  I love you. If anything, he responded
• 16:17
  tersely to her texts and acted annoyed and put out that she was
• 16:21
  even texting him because he gets so little time with his friends
• 16:24
  only every couple of weeks. So what she got to text him for,
• 16:26
  etc, right. So that guy's not getting laid
• 16:30
  and she's going to hate him going out.
• 16:31
  She got zero. She got 00 from him going out,
• 16:35
  whereas the other woman actually got something.
• 16:37
  And then going back to our deployed scenario, what did that
• 16:40
  woman get? She got love letters.
• 16:42
  She got something. You know, he may be away and
• 16:45
  that may be terrible and she may be dealing with everything else
• 16:48
  as a military wife at home. But she gets some guy who
• 16:51
  really, really loves her and tells her so she gets something.
• 16:55
  There's something that happened. It's like a little kid who's
• 16:59
  like parent goes on a business trip and then the they miss the
• 17:03
  parent a lot, but the parent comes home and has lots of
• 17:06
  presents, lots of stories and said, I missed you so much.
• 17:09
  I thought about you all these different times.
• 17:11
  And what I thought is I'm going to have to take you back here
• 17:15
  one day and it's going to be great.
• 17:17
  And, you know, here's a present from this city and a present
• 17:20
  from this city, and now we're going to do something special on
• 17:23
  the weekend because I missed you so much.
• 17:25
  Now, that kid does not have necessarily a bad feeling about
• 17:27
  the parent going on a business trip.
• 17:29
  It kind of worked out. They got something out of it,
• 17:32
  you know, they got all this attention and extra stuff, and
• 17:35
  the parents going to now spend extra time with them.
• 17:38
  That's another thing, by the way, that guys do who are
• 17:40
  successful at spending less time in some way with the woman is
• 17:44
  that they then say that they want to spend more time with her
• 17:47
  at a later juncture in order to compensate.
• 17:50
  Yeah. The thing is, honey, you know, I
• 17:52
  got to go out with, you know, Jack, It's his bachelor party.
• 17:56
  I was looking forward to spending the night with you.
• 17:58
  But it's his bachelor party. So can I go to that?
• 18:01
  And, you know, a little bit early.
• 18:04
  It really starts at 8:00. But, you know, I'm his best
• 18:06
  friend, so if it's OK with you, I would want to go at six.
• 18:10
  But I know I lose time with you and the kids.
• 18:11
  What I was thinking though, is that next weekend we can all go
• 18:14
  to, you know, the beach and then we have a great family weekend.
• 18:18
  I was thinking, that would be nice.
• 18:20
  Of course, if it's not okay with you, then I'll go at 8:00
• 18:22
  instead. You know, if it's too tough with
• 18:24
  the kids, most women will say no, it's alright, it's alright.
• 18:28
  Go, go at 6:00. That's fine.
• 18:30
  You really, you know, do you want to go to the beach next
• 18:32
  weekend? Which beach?
• 18:33
  I'll look into it, blah blah blah.
• 18:35
  And then if the guy, when he's out at Jack's bachelor party,
• 18:38
  sends a couple funny pictures and a couple of I Miss you
• 18:41
  texts, it's like she got something good.
• 18:43
  She feels like a Good Wife. Everybody wants to feel like a
• 18:46
  good partner. She feels like she gave him
• 18:48
  something, you know, like a cool wife.
• 18:50
  Everybody wants to be the cool wife.
• 18:53
  That's cool with stuff. And then they're going to the
• 18:55
  beach too, which, I mean, they could have done that anyway.
• 18:58
  But the way that he's framing it is like, wow, like, you know,
• 19:01
  we're missing out on this. So then we're doing that.
• 19:05
  So think about this. Really think about how if you've
• 19:07
  been blaming things on your wife for being difficult in these
• 19:10
  scenarios, have you actually in any way been framing it in a way
• 19:14
  that gives her anything positive?
• 19:16
  Or is it all negative when you spend time away from her for
• 19:20
  whatever reason? And therefore, why would any
• 19:22
  human like that, right? Nobody's wholly altruistic.
• 19:26
  You're not wholly altruistic either if you're a man listening
• 19:28
  to this, because wholly altruistic would say, oh, I
• 19:32
  never want to disturb her. If she doesn't want to have sex,
• 19:35
  then that must be what she wants and so thus that is her best
• 19:39
  life is to be celibate and I will just be happy for her and
• 19:44
  be happy that she is living her best life.
• 19:47
  If you don't say that, then why would she want you to, like, go
• 19:51
  out drinking with Jack, right? I mean, you know, who the fuck
• 19:54
  did she get out of that? Nothing.
• 19:56
  She's lonely, she's sad, She feels that you're on
• 19:58
  prioritizer, same as you feel right when she doesn't sleep
• 20:01
  with you. So you got to think about it
• 20:04
  very, very clearly so that you don't end up being the victim
• 20:08
  and your wife, the perpetrator, the buzzkill, the ball and
• 20:11
  chain. However, whatever.
• 20:13
  However you say. All right, I hope you guys got
• 20:15
  something out of this and I will talk to you all soon.
• 20:17
  Bye, bye.